Allowing double-jabbed travellers arriving in the UK to avoid quarantine is a “complicated” policy and will “require time to work through”, according to the Transport Secretary.
Grant Shapps has already indicated the Government plans “in future” to introduce the change for fully vaccinated people returning from amber list countries, such as Spain and France.
Replying to an urgent question, Mr Shapps told the Commons: “This is a complicated policy that requires time to work through. First, the Joint Committee on Vaccines and Immunisations has yet to opine on whether children should be part of the vaccination programme – they’re not at present and we must resolve how children would therefore be treated under a programme which enables people to travel.
“Next there’s the question of what to do for people who cannot be vaccinated for medical reasons or perhaps because they’re on one of the vaccine trials. That accounts for about half a million people and we need to work out what to do there.
“There’s also the question of how to recognise vaccine status at ports and airports – easier for people who have been vaccinated in the UK, the main NHS app can already display your vaccine status, but less easy to prove from someone coming from overseas, particularly if they have paper-based systems.
“As a result of all of this we will announce to the House when we’re ready to make these decisions in order to bring this system into place, phased most likely for UK residents first.”
For Labour, shadow transport secretary Jim McMahon said: “We have been pushing for the Government to show international leadership but so far they have failed to step up.
“So can I ask him why the Government won’t bring forward concrete plans for an international vaccine passport which will be accepted by key destination countries?”
Grant Shapps, in his reply, said: “He calls for a passport which could be used for people who are doubled vaccinated and yet at the same time his policy is actually to put every single country in the red list.”
Labour has previously called for a green and red list, and the removal of the amber list.
On US-UK travel, Mr Shapps said “progress is being made” before adding: “There are a whole series of complexities to resolve, for example, the US does not recognise AstraZeneca – currently because AstraZeneca hasn’t applied for the licence.
“On the other side we don’t have any particular system to recognise vaccine status from the United States because they don’t have a digitised system as we do with our NHS – they have 50 separate systems. There are complexities.”
